NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — White House officials say President Donald Trump was given a dose of an "antibody cocktail" after he tested positive for COVID-19.
The experimental treatment, created by the pharmaceutical company Regeneron, is still in its testing phases. It was given to the President under what's known as "compassionate use," which is usually only reserved for very sick patients but also can be used if the treating physician applies for it and gets FDA approval.
Regeneron's antibody cocktail is similar to COVID-19 treatments that Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers have been studying for months.
Dr. Todd Rice leads VUMC's convalescent plasma research for COVID-19. He said the hospital is looking into how plasma antibodies can help COVID-19 recovery and is also hosting trials for a different company's antibody cocktail.
"We're very, very, very active in this arena and this treatment," Rice said.
The idea behind the treatment is the same as the idea behind something more familiar: donating plasma.
"People develop antibodies when they recover from a disease like COVID, and the antibodies kind of live in that plasma, those are natural antibodies," Rice explained. "With pharmaceutical antibodies, like Regeneron, they take some of those antibodies, they find ones that are specific for a certain protein on the virus, and then they mass produce those in a lab."
Rice said the added anti-bodies can be used to make symptoms less severe.
"It binds to the virus and sort of neutralizes the virus. It keeps it from entering the cells, keeps it from reproducing itself in the cells, and keeps it from causing symptoms in the patient, or as many symptoms, in the patient."
Regeneron has published a media release saying they've seen promising results from the treatment, but Rice said the antibody cocktail given to President Trump is still in the testing stages.
"All of those are still early results in a late-phase testing," Rice said.
The co-founder of Regeneron says when it's approved for widespread use, he expects the Department of Defense to make it available to the most high-risk patients free of charge.
